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Immigration votes taken by Aaron Bean as a member of the Florida House have been at the center of a recent line of attack from a third-party group supporting his opponent, Mike Weinstein.

The two are locked in a heated GOP primary for state Senate District 4, which includes all of Nassau and portions of Duval County.

Last week, the group hammered a 2005 vote Bean took in favor of a wide-ranging education bill that included a measure that would have offered in-state tuition to certain undocumented students. The bill passed the House 112-3, but died in the Senate.

After the ad, Bean’s camp jumped.

Bean spokeswoman Sarah Bascom said he “did not support extending any benefits to illegal immigrants,” and Bean said in a radio interview “they’re making crazy claims that Aaron Bean is in favor of illegal aliens getting reduced tuition, and nothing…could be further from the truth.”

It was the campaign’s take, but the vote was the vote.

Those responses prompted a second ad from the group supporting Weinstein - Floridians for Ethics and Truth in Politics.

“Your record on illegal immigration is bad enough, Mr. Bean,” the narrator says. “Your lies just make it worse.”

The ad also makes a new claim that Bean supported health care for illegal aliens in 2007, but first the in-state tuition claim.

In an interview this week with the Times-Union, Bean changed his tune. In short, he said he did not know the provision was in the 100-page bill.

“The bill did a lot of things. If I knew there was the tuition thing in there, I would not have voted for it,” said Bean in an interview after his radio comments. He stressed that, despite the vote, he does not support the idea.

Now, onto the healthcare claim.

The new ad says that Bean’s support of HB 7189 in 2007 equates to him voting to give "health care subsidies to illegal aliens.”

That bill, which failed, aimed to expand enrollment in KidCare, a program funded by both state and federal money that provides insurance to children of low income parents.

Bean’s campaign blasted the attack, saying the bill had nothing to do with illegal aliens.

“The health care bill they reference did not extend any benefits for illegal immigrants, it was a bill making administrative changes to streamline existing health care programs for children and improve efficiency," Bascom wrote.

So, who ‘s right?

The bill would have extended premium subsidies to "non-citizens," but the KidCare program does not define a "non-citizen" as an illegal alien.

Examples of non-citizens on the program's Web site include: Children with lawful permanent residence, refugees, Cuban and Hatian entrants, American Indians born outside the United States, and Iraqi and Afghani special immigrant visa holders, among others.

The site continues: “In general, children eligible for Florida KidCare must be U.S. citizens.”